Take Me To The Other Side
by RulerOfAllThatIsEvilChiFlowers
Summary: An Addek Short Story. Pre-series. Sometimes it takes a tragedy to change a life. Will Addison and Derek be able to mend what they had? Or will they continue to hide behind coiled smiles? Addison/Derek #Addek


**Warning. Sensitive topic - suicide. Warning. Ill advised for young readers.**

* * *

 **Take Me To The Other Side**

-:-

 _c'est la vie, Addison._

-:-

 _7:00am_

The funny thing about suspending twenty-five stories high above the Hudson River is you can actually taste the ocean. Even at a vast height, you can still capture the blended salt and sulphur with just a hint of green and a briny finish on your taste buds.

It's there. _Somewhere_. With the wind - fettered together in the air particles that are too minuscule to be seen by the naked eye.

It's there. _Really really there_. She just can't seem to form words today - the right words so you'd understand, so you wouldn't think she's gone ballistics out of her mind.

It's there. It's just hardly noticeable if you don't know what you're looking for. It's a crumb, an atom of scent; no, even less than that - it's more like the premonition of a scent than the scent itself.

She can see it too, not only taste it.

She has to see it. _Wants to see him again._ She has to believe that once she's done here, she'll be where she should've been all along.

 _Take him! Please take him away!_

She'll just pretend that she had just caught a microscopic particle with her bare hands and clasp it over her chest, her heart - the same way she would whenever Derek would blow a kiss to her - never will she ever let go. Never again.

She smile to herself at the cheesy memory. It's who they _are_. No, were - past tense. It's who they _were_. Smiley.

His soft ocean blues would always shine so brightly at her. And his lip would curl ever so slightly in that boyish grin she loves so much.

He's smiling at her again. She can see him. His eyes voicing the words his lips cannot say, _I love you_.

Dreamy; she remembers always getting lost in the timbre of his voice. Gentle and sweet.

One wouldn't ever think he's capable of raising his voice at her. He is. And she forgives him every time because she deserves being spat at.

He'd stare at her like no boy has ever and she'd pretend like he didn't just left her breathless.

She remembers how he looked at her the day of Savvy and Weiss's wedding, when she stood at the top of the staircase in midnight blue.

She remembers when he kissed her neck and told her she'd better not be wearing panties because there were all kinds of things he wanted to do to her in the cab.

She remembers his scent and his eyes and the warming mixture of Scotch on his breath.

She remembers the day she fell in love with him and the day he told her he loved her almost a thousand times before.

For so long, she'd forgotten how to remember. Now she can't remember how to forget.

They were just so young. So young and innocent, only thoughts of prosperity ahead. So carefree and unbidden of cruelty. So beautiful and flawed, all at the same time. So unaware, so polished, so less messy with less crows feet, less frown lines, less tear troughs and so less unhappy.

Fresh out of med school, the beginnings of their internship, they were too young to understand anything, let alone start a life together and. . .create one together.

 _7:12am_

It smells immense and unique, pure and unadulterated. _Familiar_.

Like the Hamptons. . .Yes, just like all the summers in the Hamptons. Like she remembers.

She whispers something into the breeze, hoping that the currents will take her there, her hair wild and angry, her eyelids fluttering closed as she breathes in the memory.

It's cold up here.

Scrunching her toes, she can still feel the softness of the sand, damp from the retreating tide. It's warm and nice and full, she feels safe. Remembers feeling so safe in strong arms.

Opening her eyes, it's not golden and blue and warm and safe anymore, it's bland and dull and menacing and cold. The sand fades out in a blissful trance, the shore fading into liquid gold, vivid in the blur. She wiggles as a shiver cascades down her spine and her eyes burst with tears.

And, she reckons, this much easier than a two hour drive to the East End. It's simple really, but, she doesn't recommend it if you're not ready.

 _She is though._

All you have to do is drive yourself to a bridge - any bridge, but preferably the highest, just in case - and start making your way to the pedestrian walkway, and if you want to take a moment or two or even three before you. . . _you know_. . .then, take it. No one should stop you. Block out all incoming voices. It's just you now. All by yourself. You're alone just how it has always been.

Oh, and one tiny reminder - hold onto the railing tightly for now, before you let go, because you want to go down on your own terms and not because the wind has decided to propel you into cold, cold water.

Because once you're plunging two hundred and twelve feet to your death, there is no turning back; there is no such thing as time machines and you can't rewrite the past even if that's what you really _really_ need to do. There is no way for you to reverse your actions to eight years ago or even to last night when you kissed your husband goodnight.

 _Or perhaps that was a goodbye?_

 _'Goodnight, Derek'_ , is ultimately, _'Goodbye, Derek'_ anyway. Because sometimes she doesn't even know if he's ever coming back home.

He had thought it was odd - she just bursting into tears like that. He, of course, wasn't the only one who had thought that. She had told herself - absolute no tears. She's not allowed to cry because she wanted this and still does. It's her decision, choice, no one is making her do this.

 _"Addie."_

Oh, but, he was so soft, so gentle cupping her cheeks. The voice, that was the voice that would always leave her breathless.

She had planned this for months. Driving herself between two states, not once, not twice, or thrice - oh, she can't even remember how much she had amounted to on gas. New York to New Jersey to New York again and the cycle repeats itself for months. To get ready. To be precise. To have no room for mistakes. It's a ten minute drive on the Interstate-95 from her place of work and from one end to the other, just to find that sweet spot, so she could end this agony.

This wasn't her first attempt, she had come to the bridge a week prior but the walkway was closed, because it was icy.

But that wasn't a sign to her. To some, it might be a sign from God. To her, it's a sign that says don't give up trying.

She brushes tears out of her eyes. She's being silly again.

There shouldn't be any second thoughts because that beats the whole purpose.

Because if you did survive - however slim the chance may be - you'd wish you didn't. She absolutely can attest to that. The fall is lethal.

Because it's not a pretty way to go.

 _A light, airy way to end your life, like going to join the angels._

Now, that's false advertising because there's nothing light and airy about hitting the water at seventy-five miles per hour. And it's definitely nothing like Olympic high diving.

And the verdict usual is multiple blunt-force injuries. This happens through sheer force - the slap of body to water - of about fifteen thousand pounds per square inch. Extensive fractures results, especially to the rib cage that are almost always bilateral and multiple fractures involving each and every rib.

You essentially die the same way as being hit by a car.

Well, it's okay, she guess. It's not the first time that that's happened to her.

Only that one time didn't work.

 _Is death a sure thing then?_

Not exactly, but the human tolerance to impact velocity in water isn't favourable either. So, she'll take her chances - law of physics haven't changed since the '60s.

Since most, if not all, of your ribs will fracture, you'll basically have tiny sharp bone fragments inside your body to contend with too. These jagged bones will rip through the spleen, lungs, heart, and other organs.

She've seen the damage firsthand - her first year as an intern. It was like someone took an eggbeater to all his organs and ground everything up. It was the most unpleasant experience at the pit to date.

Maybe, now, she'll be the newbies' unpleasant experience.

Well, that's good. New York-Presbyterian Hospital is a teaching hospital, after all.

Oh, also, it's of utmost importance that you drive yourself. _Alone_. You do not need anyone to talk you out of this, because you sure as hell have tried that already. No need in getting anyone else involved.

 _What's one more day of being alone - other than it being your last - when you've been by yourself this entire time anyway?_

But if a presence is what you want, then, go ahead, no one is not stopping you. Bring along your parents, your cab driver, your husband or brother or friends and neighbours and professors. . .she's just advising you not to.

You don't need to traumatise your family any further. You're already going to kill yourself, that's traumatic on it's own.

 _7:24am_

 _"I WANT YOU TO. . ."_

They were fighting again. They _were_ \- they _are_ always so great at that - fighting.

Drama-filled and tears and snot and screaming and shoving and pulling and yanking - so violent and so unnecessary.

Glass shattering into pieces when he flung one across the room. And she pitched in too, because she can.

She thinks it's time that they receive an Oscar or a Golden Globes or something prestigious like that. She can't be picky anymore.

There's no time to be rational now. She has done exactly that for years and it has gotten her nowhere. _Well, that's a lie._ Rationality has gotten her _here_ actually, to where she wants to be.

She's going to do _it_ today.

 _It's_ what he wants anyway. And for once, she'll grant him his wish. She never could, but today, she can.

She knows what he wanted her to do.

She wanted to do _it_ too.

He just has no idea how hard she've tried to accomplish _it_ , how many times she've tried. But she will today. Nothing to worry, she will do _it_ today.

He thinks he knows everything about her and them because they've been married for a decade - together for almost fourteen years, minus the six miserable months they were broken up in their third year of med school - but, he doesn't. He's clueless or perhaps, he sees it, her pain, but just chooses not to.

 _"Go ahead, Derek! What's stopping you today? Finish that sentence, Derek! Say it! Say it! I fucking dare you, Derek!"_

She never got to hear him complete that sentence. The only reply she got was the resounding thud and quiver of their Upper East Side brownstone as he slammed the door behind him.

She knows it, doesn't need him to say it. Because she hears it on a daily basis. But truth is, she actually never wanted him to say it. Maybe a part of her knew he never would do that to her.

He's still her Derek, after all.

If he did - scream it out - she don't think she could ever take it, handle it. It'll feel like he's stomping on her heart. She wouldn't survive the evening, that's for certain.

He runs. She runs too. They're no different.

 _I WANT YOU TO_ _DIE._

They provoke one another past the brim to see if the other still cares.

 _I WANT YOU TO_ _DIE._

He thinks it. _Does he still?_ Because she does. Only, she's really doing _it_ today.

 _I WANT YOU TO DIE._

The unkind voices are screaming at her. She's not crazy. It's herself that she's talking to in her head.

 _Jump! Jump! Jump! What are you waiting for? No one is going to stop you! So jump! Go kill yourself!_

 _7:29am_

She'll just fake it since she've been doing that oh-so perfectly lately. Until she wasn't, until she got too attached once again and was left to face the wrath of a grieving mother. It's not the first time she lost a baby, it's been thousands of time too many. But this case, patient just hit too close to home. She doesn't know what it was. Perhaps it's her red hair - a shade too familiar. Or her blue irises. Or the fact that they reminded her of them; young and innocent. Or the dead baby in her arms itself.

What the mother wouldn't allow her to explain, because of her relentless and cruel expulsion, was she knows exactly what she's going through; precisely and to the decimal. The guilt, the blame and all the finger pointing - oh, she absolutely gets it.

 _One hundred percent._

The only difference is that she never blamed her doctor.

 _"So, you know what you need to do right now? You need to go and kill yourself. That's the one good thing that's gonna come out of you killing my son! You're gonna go, and you're gonna kill yourself, Dr. Shepherd!"_

She blames and _blamed_ herself.

 _7:34am_

So that's why she's alone and here, on the George Washington Bridge - holding the waist-high metal handrail tightly with the wind slashing through her crisply pressed, straight from the dry-cleaning Armani and Manolos.

Yes, she might as well look her best going to the other side. Put together when nothing in her life is. Because for so long it hasn't. Her end just has to be pristine and unerring. And all the poignancy just has to end somewhere. _Right?_

She's tired. So so emotionally drain. And she have been for so long. Too long. Cocooning in fake smiles since she has to be the strong one because one of them has to. She gave Derek what he needed. One of them has to be the pillar that holds them together. She gave him space. One of them has to be okay when the other is not.

Rubbing the torrents of salt over her face, she tries to take a breath in, but the tears just flow faster.

But this, it was years of feeling like her body was broken, fighting with Derek about if this was even what she wanted, to finally hearing _his_ heartbeat.

That was the real loss.

She can't even remember who she was before all this.

 _Dead_.

She killed them both.

All she wants is to be okay again. For everything to be great again. Them - him and her - happy and healthy again. She needs it to be because she's just so tired.

"How are you? Is everything okay?"

It's a calm before the storm.

It's a tone that's friendly and sweet. Child-like even. She's just doing her job to play dumb, Addison knows that.

 _Why else would anyone be standing on the ledge of a bridge?_

Turning around, she hadn't even notice the commotion behind her until now, the school of uniforms, patrol cars and just random people existing their vehicles to witness her drop.

Red and blue blinding lights. Letters that screamed _NYPD_ and _NPD_.

 _Great! She's causing traffic. How many lanes do they have to close down because of her?_

Of course, she never make thing easy for herself and others. Just like how she precisely chose her sweet spot to be in the point between the two States.

 _Who gets jurisdiction?_

It's both State's issue now.

She took a wobbly step back and a ragged breath in. "Don't-" she said, her voice quivered in a cry midway. _Don't come any closer._

Her body is just wanting to inch over the edge. _Jump! Jump! Jump!_ The harsh wind is slapping her on the back. Maybe it's pulling her. _Come on now, Addison, just one teeny tiny step._ Because it doesn't even have to be a full step since once you put one heel backwards, you're suspending in midair.

If she were to lean backwards now, let her limbs collapsing beneath her, she'd smile a goodbye, that would let everyone know she went down happy and smiling and thinking of _him_. Derek would know that smile - that smile where both ends of her lips are actually curled evenly. She haven't smiled in that way for so long. Derek would know. He'd be happy for her.

 _I did this to him. . ._

The female officer took a careful step towards her. And it's evident with her rigid and stiff stance that she's holding her ground as tightly as she can because a slip is all it takes. Her hands leveled in caution, "It's okay, Ma'am." she assured.

She hates that - _it's okay_.

It's not okay.

 _Why don't anyone say that?_ That's much more accurate. No one is ever okay and if they are, they are just lying. Trying to make you jealous.

It's never going to be okay. Ever.

 _It was an accident, Addie. . ._

But it wasn't. She shouldn't have been driving in the first place. She should've stayed home.

Her heart is pounding, sprinting away from her chest.

They always say to not look down at great heights like this. _Who's they? She don't know._ But she never really had a problem with heights to begin with and she did exactly just that.

Derek is the one who's scared of heights.

On their trip to Paris, they didn't even get to the top of the Eiffel Tower because by just looking at it, he was on the verge of passing out. She didn't even care. It was something they could laugh about. She loves Paris. She just loves him a lot, a lot more.

So, she knows he's never going to come up here and talk her out of this.

 _Why do you think she chose to end her life by jumping off a height?_

She sees the current flow grandiosely, hears the light pounding of waves.

But then, she thinks about the officer's words - it's okay. She's right. It's all going to be okay soon. She'll be over and soon, she'll embrace _it_ \- freedom.

"What are you doing up here?"

She could ask her the same thing.

She will fix it. He has to let her fix it. She can fix this.

"I think you know what I'm doing up here."

She just wants to be with her son again.

* * *

 _ **Hey guys! Thanks for reading! What do you guys think? I'm in an agnsty mood lately. I'd love to know your thoughts. So, please review! REVIEW!**_

 _ **Oh and please read** Karma **if you haven't already!**_


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